Rafidah: No budging on UMNO's bumi policy for FTA with US
Did we even remotely hope that a ray of light would shine through from the whole FTA issue with the US and that perhaps the UMNO government might relent somewhat on their ethnic preference policies for government procurement?No way.
After 5 rounds of talks, our own iron lady, International Trade and Industry Minister Rafidah Aziz has said that " We will not move (on government procurement)... If that's a deal breaker, so be it, but fortunately now, it's not"."There are options open. Are we going to let the deal break or look at it in a different context? This is not cast in stone. This is something that can be negotiated," she said.
One wonders what kind of alternatives she is thinking about. While many economists debate the pros and cons of FTAs, one thing that is certain is that Malaysia will benefit from an overall increase in output and the increased level of trade the FTA will bring.
Having endowed themselves with meaning and purpose from their ethnic preference policies, UMNO is now finding it a challenge to back down or compromise on them.
Poor us.
Technorati: Malaysia, USA, Free Trade, UMNO
posted by hew @ 11:49 am
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